Researching ‘the Lost Decade’ of New Belgrade

This chapter recalls the research carried out in the early 2000s in the field of architecture and urban planning of New Belgrade. The period covered was roughly the first decade of its planning as the new capital of socialist Yugoslavia, between 1947 and 1959, known as the ‘lost decade’ as the majority of the plans were never realised. This period coincides with the social, political and economic transformation, with the foundation of the planning institutions of socialist Yugoslavia and organisation of the first competitions for the design of the new city; but also with the political divergence with the Soviet Union and implementation of workers’ self-management. New Belgrade was imagined as a new capital of Yugoslavia that would replace the historic city, therefore the research focuses on the use of architecture as part of the political discourse: the way new projects were promoted and explained to the wider public, the imaginaries intended to be projected through new designs, and discourses pronounced on important occasions. The development of Yugoslavian modern architecture was closely linked with the political ideology, so the methodology used was placed on the crossing between architectural and social history, and discourse analysis.